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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #208

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208. The second account:

When I was once thinking about the secrets of conjugial love that wives hide and keep to themselves, I again saw the golden rain that I mentioned before; 1 and I remembered that it fell like mist upon a hall in the east, where three pictures of conjugial love lived, that is, three married couples who loved each other tenderly. On seeing it, I hastened in that direction, as though bidden by the sweetness of my reflection on that love; and as I approached, the rain turned from gold to purple, then scarlet, and when I was almost there, it became opalescent like dew.

I knocked and the door was opened. So I said to the attendant, "Convey to the husbands that one who was here before with an angel is present again, seeking permission to come in and speak with them."

When the attendant returned, he indicated the husbands' assent and I entered. The three husbands and their wives were together in a courtyard, and they returned my greeting warmly.

I then asked the wives whether the white dove had ever appeared at the window again. They said it had appeared that very day, and also had spread its wings. "We therefore anticipated your coming," they said, "to entreat us to reveal one more secret of conjugial love."

"But why do you say one," I asked, "when I have come here to learn many more?"

[2] "They are secrets," they replied, "and some of them so transcend the wisdom of you men that the comprehension of your intellect cannot grasp them. You men vaunt yourselves over us on account of your wisdom, but we do not vaunt ourselves over you on account of ours - even though our wisdom is superior to yours because it enters into your inclinations and affections and sees, perceives and feels them.

"You know nothing at all about the inclinations and affections of your love, and this despite the fact that it is because of them and in accordance with them that your intellect thinks, consequently that it is because of them and in accordance with them that you have your wisdom. Yet wives know these things in their husbands so well that they see them in their husbands's faces and hear them in the intonations of the speech of their mouth - indeed so well that they feel them with the touch of their hands on their husbands' breasts, arms and cheeks. But from a zealous love for your happiness and at the same time our own, we pretend as if we do not know these things, while at the same time moderating them so discreetly that whatever our husbands' wish, pleasure or will, we accede to it by allowing and enduring it, and only redirecting it when possible, but never compelling."

[3] "How is it that you have this wisdom?" I asked.

They replied, "It is implanted in us from creation and so from birth. Our husbands liken it to an instinct, but we say it comes of Divine providence, in order that men may be made happy through their wives. Our husbands have told us that it is the Lord's will that the masculine sex act in freedom in accord with reason; and since a man's freedom involves his inclinations and affections, therefore the Lord Himself moderates his freedom from within, and through his wife from without, and so forms the man and his wife together into an angel of heaven. Besides, if love is compelled, its fundamental nature changes and it becomes no longer the same love.

"But we will explain it more frankly. We are moved to this - that is, to a discreet moderation of the inclinations and affections of our husbands, so discreet that it seems to them that they act in freedom in accord with their own reason - because we feel delight from their love, and we love nothing more than for them to feel delight from our feelings of delight. But if these feelings become matters of indifference in them, they also begin to fade in us."

[4] When they had said this, one of the wives went into her bedroom, and returning said, "My dove is still fluttering its wings - a sign that we may divulge more."

So they said, "We have observed changes in the inclinations and affections of men in a variety of cases. For instance, husbands are cold to their wives whenever they entertain vain thoughts against the Lord and the church. They are cold whenever they pride themselves because of their own intelligence. They are cold whenever they look upon other women with lust. They are cold whenever they are admonished by their wives on the subject of love. We could mention a number of other instances as well, including the fact that the coldness they feel varies in each case. We notice this from the withdrawal of feeling from their eyes, ears and body when their senses meet ours.

"From these few illustrations you can see that we know better than men whether all is well with them or not. If they are cold to their wives, all is not well with them, but if they are warm to their wives it is. Wives are therefore continually turning over in their minds ways of inducing their men to be warm to them and not cold, and they do this with a keenness of perception incomprehensible to men."

[5] As they said this, we heard what seemed to be the sound of a dove moaning; and at that point the wives said, "That is a signal to us that although we are eager to divulge still deeper secrets, we may not. Perhaps you will expose to men the secrets you have heard."

"That is my intention," I replied. "What harm will it do?"

After conferring with each other about this, the wives then said, "Disclose them if you wish. We are not unacquainted with the power of persuasion possessed by wives. Indeed, they will say to their husbands, 'The man is fooling. They are fictions. He is trying to amuse with appearances and the usual nonsense typical of men. Do not believe him; believe us. We know that you are the lovers and we your humble servants.'

"So," they said, "disclose them if you wish; but the husbands' attention will not hang on your lips, but on the lips of their wives which they kiss."

Footnotes:

1. See no. 155[r]

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #456

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456. But the rest of mankind, who were not killed in these plagues. (9:20) This symbolizes people in the Protestant Reformed Church who were not as spiritually dead as the former were because of their illusory reasonings and love of self, a conceit in their own intelligence, and the attendant lusts, and yet who made faith alone the chief tenet of their religion.

The rest of mankind mean people who are not like those described, but who still make faith alone the chief tenet of their religion. Their not being killed symbolizes people not so spiritually dead. The plagues in which the former were killed mean a love of self, a conceit in their own intelligence, and the attendant lusts for evil and falsity, because these three are symbolized by fire, smoke and brimstone, as discussed above in nos. 452, 453. We will see below that plagues have this symbolism. But first we must say something about the people:

[2] I have been given to see these people, too, and to speak with them. They live in the northern zone over to the west. Some of them have huts there with roofs, others huts without roofs. Their beds are made of rushes, their clothes of goats' hair. Seen in the light that flows in from heaven, their faces have a leaden color and also lack vitality. The reason is that they know nothing more from their religion than that there is a God, that there are three persons, that Christ suffered the cross for them, and that they are saved by means of faith alone, and in addition by worship in churches and prayers at set times. To anything else pertaining to religion and its tenets they pay no attention. For the worldly and personal concerns that occupy and fill their minds shut their ears to them.

Many of them were church elders, and I asked them what their thinking was when they read about works, love and charity, fruits, precepts for life, repentance - in word, about things that must be done. They replied that they had indeed read these things and so had seen them, but still did not see them, because they kept their mind focused on faith alone. Consequently they said that these all constitute faith, and that they did not think of them as being the effects of faith.

The ignorance and stupidity of people once they have embraced faith alone and made it the whole of their religion is such as to be scarcely believable, even though I have been given to witness it by a good deal of experience.

[3] That plagues symbolize spiritual plagues, which cause a person to die in spirit or as regards his soul, is apparent from the following passages:

Your rupture is hopeless, your plague severe... ...I will restore health to you and heal you of your plagues... (Jeremiah 30:12, 14, 17)

Everyone who goes by Babylon shall... hiss at all her plagues. (Jeremiah 50:13)

...plagues will come (to Babylon) in one day - death and mourning... (Revelation 18:8)

I saw... seven angels having the seven last plagues, by which the wrath of God is to be consummated. (Revelation 15:1, 6)

Woe to a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity... From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it. A wound and a scar and a fresh plague - these have not been expressed, bound up, or soothed with ointment. (Isaiah 1:4, 6)

In the day that Jehovah will bind up the fracture of His people and heal the wound of its plague. (Isaiah 30:26)

So, too, elsewhere, as in Deuteronomy 28:59, Jeremiah 49:17, Zechariah 14:12, 15, Luke 7:21, Revelation 11:6; 16:21.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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